Peter,
Bonding is highly software dependent which is why Padma asked the first question. As mentioned the LOMs can be bonded as can most all of the PCIe network cards that can be installed in the C-Series server. The question comes down to, first, SW supportability, and second adapter drivers/hw capabilities.
Starting with the software. Windows 2K8R2 and below relied on the adapter vendors to build teaming drivers to support active/passive, active/active TLB, or active/active LACP bonding. Linux on the other hand has supported this natively for hardware that can support the various types for many builds. Starting with 2K12 Windows now also handles bonding natively. For ESXi, prior to ESXi 5.1 the only bonding available was an active/backup scenario where different ports would be active for some hosts and backup for others, thus allowing all ports to be active, but the balancing was based on assignment of the virtual hosts. To support LACP from the vSwitch required the Nexus 1KV. With version 5.1 they now support LACP natively.
The second part of the equation is the hardware. Active/Backup or Active/Active (TLB/ALB) do not require any special communication or protocol with the switch and outside of Win 2K8R2 and below rarely requires any special drivers. However LACP does require that the hardware support 802.3ad.
This being said, the onboard LOMs for the M3 servers are Intel I350 controllers and can easily be bonded with ESXi 5.1 for LACP, as can almost all of the 10Gig adapters qualified for the C-Series.
Bottom Line: First what can the software actually support? Second what can the card support?
Hope this helps,
Steve McQuerry
UCS - Technical Marketing
